The Only Constant

Glen Robinson

One of the things I notice about getting older is how fast the months on the calendar flip by. For instance, it seems like only yesterday that I was grabbing the phone in Caldwell, Idaho to answer a call from Bob Mendenhall. I was at a point at Pacific Press where I felt my job was winding down, and I’d filed a resume with Bob a year before. Teaching had caught my fascination while I was studying for my master’s degree, and I welcomed the opportunity to get into the classroom again.

But moving from Idaho to Texas wasn’t a move we could consider lightly. When we moved to Idaho from California in 1988, others in the family thought we were moving to the edge of the world. Now we talked about Texas, and all we could picture in our minds were ghost towns and tumbleweeds.

I wanted to teach, but we needed to be sure that this was the right move for our family. And so we prayed. But this wasn’t an ordinary prayer. We’d be far away from family, and we needed to know that we’d feel welcome in Keene when we moved there. For my wife, Shelly told me (as she always did), “This will be the VERY LAST TIME we move.”

So Shelly, my daughter Melissa and I planned our visit to Keene to check out the campus, and be checked out in turn by the department and the University. And on the plane headed to DFW that February day, we prayed together: “Lord, if it’s not your will that we move to Texas, let us hate Bob and Bev Mendenhall.”

Today, it’s less than politically correct to talk about how friendly the campus is, what a broad diversity of students we have on campus, and how small classes make it possible for students and teachers to learn and grow with each other in extraordinary ways. I know it’s because there are so many other special things that Southwestern offers that the school wants people to know about. But those are the things that made an indelible impression on me. Suffice it to say that we ended up loving Bob and Bev. I appreciated that strong feeling of diversity on campus and what it taught all of us. And I looked forward to working very closely with students. And so despite having put down deep roots in Idaho, and having a daughter who was halfway through high school, we decided to move to Texas.

Change isn’t always easy. There are some changes that pretty much seem a given. But many times God leads us to strike our tents and move to a faraway place, even though the place we’re at right now is still pretty comfortable. And that’s when God’s guidance is particularly important.

Southwestern’s history is full of people who came to the campus looking for change in their lives. Here’s hoping that the change you are seeing in your own life is leading you to the good things God has planned for you.

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